


So We're On the Mend

by WhatIsAir



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Emotional Constipation, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, bucky barnes needs help with feelings, characters not talking about their feelings, christmas in june, steve likes christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 00:57:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6543964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatIsAir/pseuds/WhatIsAir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naturally Captain Rogers is now in a committed relationship with the Falcon. New mission objectives: challenge Sam Wilson to a duel and win Steve Rogers’ heart,</p><p>Which is why James is currently camped out in front of Sam Wilson’s house and trying desperately to think of a good, tactical reason (excuse) for the reconnaissance he’s doing (read: spying on Steve Rogers’ domestic life).</p>
            </blockquote>





	So We're On the Mend

_“Buck, what’re you doing,” Steve hisses, whipping round to stare, wide-eyed, at him, because Bucky’s just sidled up behind him at the bar and slid an arm around his too-thin waist._

_“Can’t a fella show his pal how much he loves him?” Bucky drawls, cheeks flushed and tipsy. He keeps his arm wrapped around Steve, and moves to nuzzle his nose against the back of Steve’s neck._

_“Buck, you can’t,” Steve says, plaintive. Then, leaning closer to whisper against Bucky’s ear, “Someone’ll see.”_

_“Don’t care,” Bucky mumbles, nosing his way up Steve’s neck. He presses a light kiss to Steve’s jumping pulsepoint, and Steve shivers. “Let ‘em see. They’re jus’ jealous.”_

_Steve casts a surreptitious glance around the mostly-empty bar, then shoves at him, hard, and Bucky stumbles back a step, wounded but sobering slightly._

_He blinks, the realization of what he’s done sending him backtracking._

_“Stevie, I didn’t mean–” Bucky says, and the expression on his face must tell Steve something terrible, because his face crumple and he turns back to his beer, hunching in on himself where he’s sat at the bar._

_“It’s okay, Buck,” he says, voice hollow and empty. He drags a finger through the pool of condensation that’s collected on the bar’s scratched wooden surface. “I know you didn’t mean it.”_

_He doesn’t look at Bucky again all evening._

-

And he’s a coward and a damn fool for messing it up, for messing up the one chance he had to tell Steve the truth (that he loved, no, loves, him).

Which is why James is currently camped out in front of Sam Wilson’s house and trying desperately to think of a good, tactical reason (excuse) for the reconnaissance he’s doing (read: _spying on Steve Rogers’ domestic life_ ).

A glance at his watch tells James it’s currently 0900, and since waking up at oh-six-hundred, Steve’s gone for his morning run, made breakfast for him and Sam (waffles and bacon), watched some kind of documentary on penguins, and listened to the national anthem.

(Okay, so maybe the last part’s not true, but given what he’s observed of Steve’s life so far, national anthem-listening definitely seems like one of Steve’s pastimes.)

James adjusts the setting on his military-grade binoculars (you don’t get to be HYDRA’s best brainwashed assassin without picking up _some_ things) and watches as Sam leaves the house for _his_ morning jog.

Sam pauses on the doorstep, and James watches as Steve follows him to the door, hands him his water bottle. They’re too far away for James to make out the contents of their exchange, but their body language is enough: Steve reaching out to clap a hand on Sam’s shoulder, his smile bright enough to match the sun, Sam squeezing Steve’s arm in return.

Steve leans forward, then, and pulls Sam forward, holding him close.

James feels the binocular lens crack as his metal hand tightens its grip; he forces himself to watch as the men embrace, the reluctance written in every line of Steve’s body as he pulls back from the hug, smiling that same smile (James remembers a time when Steve used to smile at _him_ like that, like he was the only thing in the damn universe that mattered).

Finally, _finally_ , Sam leaves, hand raised in farewell as he jogs down the gravel path and turns right to head to the park.

Steve turns to head back inside and James lowers his binoculars. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth, but already his mind’s set on his next mission objective: winning Steve Rogers’ heart back.

-

“Did you find anything at the museum?” are the first words out of Steve’s mouth as Sam steps through the door.

Sam understands the urgency, though. He understands the agony of the wait, the pain of not knowing. (He thinks about the sharp whir of helicopter blades, swimming in and out of consciousness while strapped to a gurney, grabbing the nearest paramedic and asking them, again and again until his abused throat felt scraped raw, “ _Riley._ Where’s Riley?”)

He unwinds the towel from the back of his neck. “Nothing we don’t already know,” he says, “I managed to get this back for you, though.” He holds out the leather-bound journal, the pages dog-eared and yellowed, and something lights up in Steve’s eyes.

“Sam, how did you –” he says, wide-eyed, before his ingrained manners kick in and he says, “ _Thank you_ ,” in as reverent a tone as if Sam’d just handed him the secret to curing cancer.

Sam shrugs, trying (and failing) not to sound too pleased with himself. “They were in between shifts at the Smithsonian, and I just happened to catch the night guard clocking off. ‘Sides, he recognized me, so I just made up some sob story about how Captain America’s doing nothing ‘cept sit on his ass all day and cry about everything he’s lost after the war.”

“You’re – I –” Steve says, throat working as he swallows, voice tight with emotion. He unclasps the journal slowly, carefully. Sam watches as his eyes skim the pages, devouring the words written in Bucky Barnes’ messy, almost unintelligible scrawl. “Thank you,” he says again.

Sam wisely doesn’t bring up the hitch in Steve’s breath, or the wetness tracking down his cheeks. He claps Steve on the shoulder. “Not a problem.”

-

_4 Jul 1938_

_Went to Coney Island to celebrate Stevie’s birthday. Punk didn’t throw up this time, but only cause he wouldn’t go on the Cyclone. We went to a bar afterwards and drunk ourselves stupid. Well, I did, anyway._

_I did something real dumb tonight, and I don’t know how I’m ever gonna look Stevie in the eye again. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink, but it was Stevie’s birthday, and I’d been saving up ever since I got the job at the docks three months ago. I guess I thought I could afford to let go for a bit, to just not think and just feel._

_I scared Stevie tonight, of that I’m sure. I thought I’d been doing a good job of hiding how I feel about him, but now I’ve gone and fucked it up real good. Only thing I can hope for is that Stevie’ll pretend it never happened and we can go back to how things were._

_I wish I wasn’t such a coward and had the courage to_

The entry trails off there, Bucky’s scrawl becoming little more than illegible loops and squiggles on the page, and Steve snaps the journal shut, his heart pounding in his ears. He’s gripping the leather-bound cover so tightly his knuckles have gone white, and the age-old ache in his chest is back with a vengeance, because this time he _knows_ , is holding the confirmation in his very hands – that he hadn’t been alone in his feelings for Bucky after all.

 _Oh, Buck_. He wonders how he could’ve missed it, how he could’ve been so _blind_. Then he wonders how long the Smithsonian’s had it, and why on earth they haven’t put the journal on display, glaring proof to the whole world that, yes, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had been head over heels _in love_ with Captain America back when he was a skinny punk with no sense of self-preservation.

-

James shoulders his way through the double doors of the store, striding towards the counter with a purpose.

“Excuse me,” a woman behind him says indignantly. James turns to find a mother (late thirties) clutching a pack of balloons in one hand, and the hand of her toddler in the other.

James raises his eyebrows, hoping his expression conveys adequately that he is a) in a hurry and b) not in the mood for toddler-coddling or whatever it is the woman has on her mind.

The woman looks askance at him, clearly taken aback by his appearance (he hasn’t shaved in a couple weeks) and his rudeness (Bucky Barnes was a real sweet-talker, but that was 70 years ago and a lifetime away).

“You’ve, uh.” She jerks her head behind her, where two more people are waiting. “There’s a line.”

James takes a deep breath, debating the merits of simply taking her out. But he doesn’t want to cause a scene (those aren’t the parameters of this mission) and he doesn’t think Steve would approve, so his unclenches his left hand, nods, and slips to the back of the line.

He gets to the front in just under ten minutes. “I want Christmas decorations,” he tells the gum-chewing assistant behind the cash register. “Anything you got. I’ll take ‘em all.”

His words shock her so much she stops chewing the gum, her jaw hanging slackly for the briefest moment before instinct takes over and her mandibles clack audibly together once more.

“But it’s June,” she says, speaking slowly, like he’s an invalid. Or a dog.

“I am well aware.”

“What do you want Christmas decorations for in flippin’ June?” she says, side-eyeing him like she thinks he belongs in an asylum.

James smiles, showing his teeth. Oh, if only she knew. “It’s a project. For a friend.”

He leaves the store with a small plastic tree, multiple bags full of baubles, tinsel and fairy lights, and a burning desire to commit homicide. (He refrains, however: Steve wouldn’t approve. And Steve’s approval, for a reason James doesn’t _quite_ remember, matters more to him than anything.)

-

_25 Dec 1942_

_Stevie:_

_(Is it weird I’m writing to you in my journal?) You’ll just have to deal, pal, cause I’m too much of a friggin’ coward to send this to you. It’s kinda nice, in a way. Freeing, cause I can say whatever the hell I want, and I’ll know you’ll never be able to read this._

Steve smiles at the irony through the tears in his eyes.

_I wish I coulda spent today with you. Christmas was always your favourite time of year, and with your ma gone it’s just been us two for the past coupla years. I’m in France now, we’re shipping over to the border in a few days. There’s not much Christmas cheer when you’re at war, but there were turkey rations that the guys and I split._

_Next year. Next Christmas is when I’ll tell you the truth. I promise you, Stevie, that I’ll be home next year and then I’ll tell you, because if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from this war we’re fighting, it’s that none of it’s worth it if you don’t got anybody to come home to._

_I mean, I know I’ve got you, but it’s not the same. I hate hiding like this. If I tell you next Christmas, and you decide you don’t wanna deal with having your best pal in frigign’ love with you, I’ll understand._

_~~I wish you felt the same way though.~~ _

Steve blinks as he reads the last, hastily crossed-through sentence, watches the tear-stain spread, blotting the ink.

-

He waits in his customary spot, binoculars at the ready. When Steve and Sam head out, duffel bags clutched in their hands (a suspiciously shield-shaped carrier on slung across Steve’s back), he seizes his chance.

Jimmying the lock open, James lets himself into Sam’s (and now Steve’s) house.

He upends the bag holding the supplies onto the floor. A stray bauble rolls under the couch and he curses, diving forward onto his stomach to retrieve it.

An hour later finds him sat in the middle of Sam’s living room, struggling to correctly assemble the plastic monstrosity that is apparently what Americans in the 21st-century call a ‘Christmas tree’. He gets three of the branches wrong and gives it up as a bad job, turning instead to the holly wreaths and mistletoe (which he hangs strategically over every doorway in the house).

Much later, he steps back to survey his handiwork: correctly assembled (with branches pointing the right way) Christmas tree in the corner, adorned with tinsel and multi-coloured baubles. There’s mistletoe over every threshold in the house, and so many fairy lights scattered over backs of couches and tops of dressers that it’s a definite safety hazard.

As a final touch, James selects Michael Buble on the iPod touch he’d stolen and puts it in Sam’s dock. He panics for a second because he’d forgotten the food (“What’s Christmas without Christmas pudding?” he remembers Steve groaning morosely in ‘37, only to perk up when he’d seen Bucky’s present: a sketchbook and box of colouring pens).

James doesn’t know how long he stands in the middle of Sam’s living room, eyeing the oven in the open-kitchen and wondering whether he should try _baking_ something, when there’s the sound of keys rattling in the lock and James freezes in the spot as the front door opens, Steve and Sam spilling into the house. They’re both suited up and flushed with exhilaration (adrenaline), clearly having just come back from some sort of SHIELD-endorsed mission.

“Steve, how many times have I told you not to leave your iPod in,” Sam groans, shrugging off his bag and dumping it in the foyer as he rounds the corner to the living room. “Do you have any idea how much electricity you’re us –”

Sam comes to a total standstill the second he sees James, and the state his living room is in. Steve rounds the corner and walks straight into Sam’s back.

“Sam, what –” he says, peering out from behind Sam’s shoulder, his eyes widening as he takes in the scene.

James licks his lips, at a startling loss for what to say. (It’s been seventy odd years, and this is the first time they’ve been face to face since 1943, _not_ counting the times they’ve crossed paths when he was still trapped as the Soldier.)

“I’ve, um.” He winces at how scratchy his voice sounds. “Stevie, I’m home.”

-

Steve doesn’t remember crossing the room, nor does he remember pushing aside Sam’s arm when he tries to stop him, hissing, “Steve, are you _sure_. What if he –” and replying with a curt, “He won’t.”

All he registers is the slightly off-kilter Christmas tree sat in the corner, the soft crooning music in the background, the ambience the fairy lights cast across the room, and Bucky. Bucky who’s unshaven, hair hanging past his ears; the rigid set of his shoulders and the way his eyes keep darting between Sam and the only exit in the room. But he stays put despite his obvious instinct to flee, and when Steve lifts a hand (slowly, gently) he pushes into the touch with a noise that’s half-happy, half-wounded and Steve feels the knife in his gut twist a little deeper.

There’s a pink bauble caught up in Bucky’s hair, which is the only thing Steve remembers because next he’s carding his free hand through Bucky’s hair, his other cupping his jaw as he leans forward and takes what he’s waited seventy years to take.

Bucky’s eyes slide shut and he makes another noise, a much happier (suggestive) one that goes straight to Steve’s groin, and Steve dimly hears the front door click shut as Sam removes himself from the premises.

Bucky pulls back, but only so he can rest his forehead against Steve’s as he mumbles, “Merry Christmas, Stevie. I –” He takes a shuddering breath, and Steve thinks about what happened the night of his 21st birthday, about the one Christmas he and Bucky had spent apart, and realizes he doesn’t need to hear it.

“I know, Buck,” he murmurs, lips brushing Bucky’s as he speaks. “I feel the same.”

Bucky exhales sharply, brow furrowed in confusion as he takes in Steve’s expression, the raw honesty in his voice. “But I haven’t –”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve says, “But you pulled me out of the Potomac, you saved my life. And now you’re here, and that’s. That’s enough, for me.”

Bucky shakes his head, an anguished choke escaping him as he pulls free from Steve’s arms entirely. “No, I –” he says, throat tight with emotion, “I need you to understand, Stevie. That I’ve always loved you, always will. I was a coward back then, thinkin’ I could bear living the rest of my life with you as a _friend_ , and I know I’ve no right, ‘specially cause you and Wilson are doin’ so well together, but I –”

“Wait,” Steve says, and now it’s _his_ turn to feel lost. “You think Sam and I are – together?”

“I – yeah,” Bucky says, matter-of-fact. “I’ve seen you two – hug, and stuff. And you live together.”

Steve’s eyebrows rise dangerously high on his forehead. “Well, someone’s done their research,” he says, and watches as a dull flush graces Bucky’s cheeks. “We’re friends,” he says, when he thinks Bucky’s suffered long enough, “Sam’s just tactile. We’re not – Buck, how could you think there’d ever ben anyone else for me ‘cept you?”

Bucky shrugs, but the rigid set of his shoulders has loosened and there’s something of a smile (so much like the old Bucky) playing around the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry I came seventy years late to the party, Rogers,” he says, and covers Steve’s mouth with his own before Steve has a chance to reply.

-

“You know,” Sam says the next morning, dishing scrambled eggs and sausages onto their plates from a pan, “There may be two bedrooms in this house, but the walls ain’t soundproof.”

Steve slowly turns the colour of a tomato. “I – we – it isn’t,” he says eloquently.

Next to him, Bucky cracks up, seeming perfectly comfortable sitting at Sam’s kitchen table in nothing but Steve’s boxer shorts.

Sam smirks. “Nice going, Rogers. Did you have that written down, or was that just off the top of your head?”

Bucky’s grin widens. “That’s what I asked him last night.” He raises his left hand and Steve watches in despair as the two of them fist-bump over his brunch.

“Sam,” he says seriously, once they’ve all calmed down and Sam’s chugging orange juice like nobody’s business, “I know what you do with those handcuffs you keep in your bedside drawer.”

Sam sprays orange juice everywhere. Steve catches Bucky’s eye over the table and they dissolve in laughter, like they’re not ninety-five year olds who’ve taken far longer than they should have to get to this point.

Steve’s damn glad they did, though.

**Author's Note:**

> y'all thanks for reading drop me a comment if you liked it and i'll write more (:
> 
> have you guys seen the jimmy kimmel i'm crYING omfg someone needs to stop friggin Seb Stan and his lube jokes fml
> 
> i can't wait for ca:cw i'm probably gonna die when it comes out i really hope y'all are team cap bc tony's great but he's no bucky :3


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